John Mattson
John Mattson has been an artist for nearly fifty years. He has done many things to earn a living, from industrial painting and sandblasting in the lumber mills of Northern California to work in a commercial art gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In December 1998 he and his wife Karen moved to Texas for the second time, where he worked part time as adjunct lecturer of drawing and design at Angelo State University and as Museum Preparator at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo for over 15 years. In 2014 he and Karen relocated to San Antonio, where they are renovating a 100 year old house and establishing studios. He has shown his paintings and photography in many galleries, art centers and museums around the country.
Safe Zone, 2013
acrylic and mixed media on paper
42" x 59"
B I O G R A P H Y
John Mattson is trained as a painter with an MFA degree from Mills College in Oakland, California. He also received a BA and MA degree in painting from Humboldt State University, Arcata, California. His paintings are unrestrained reflections of his reactions to the world and his life. Over the years he has developed a deeply personal, visual language of his inner psyche. In 1978 Mattson bought a camera to record his paintings and became enamored with the instrument itself and started a process that he continues to this day -- taking long walks with his camera and recording whatever attracts his eye. His photography celebrates the ironic, the whimsical, and the beauty of the mundane. He is fascinated with the random and often ephemeral results of human impact on the world.